[rendaw]

I don't mean direct this specifically at you, but aren't there databases that can look up diseases by symptoms? Are doctors not trained to consult those, maybe after ruling out common causes? Why is forgetting relevant in this context?

I'm asking because I've had frequent encounters with doctors whose process seems to be, literally, "remember if there's anything like the described symptoms that I learned in medical school" which, if they were somewhat older, was probably 30+ years ago.

[tsoukase]

Esp in mental health there is a large overlap of symptoms between diagnoses. So doctor's experience is needed to get the right diagnosis. No database and, hell, no AI assistance yet.

It all boils down on how deep a doctor goes diagnostically: for common diseases (1/100) an interview is enough, for rarer (1/1000) an MRI/blood test are needed and for very rare you need extensive and expensive genetic and immune exams. Because of cost, the 'art of diagnosis' is to be able to filter the cases that should be referred downward. Classic type I/II error due to binary misclassification happens all the time.

[burntsushi]

After my abnormal brain MRIs, my understanding is that the diagnosis came down to either some kind of encephalitis or multiple sclerosis. But test results have to come back first. I was even set up with a follow-up with an MS specialist. Once my anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis test came back positive though, that follow-up got cancelled and replaced with a neuro-immunologist that specializes in these sorts of things.

And even if I did have an MS, there are various sub-types that require going through something quite complicated call the McDonald criteria: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diagnosis_of_multiple_sclerosi...